By putting public employee unions before taxpayers, PEG, Caltrans and the legislative majority that passed SB 1298 will burden working-class taxpayers with exorbitant tolls to drive on roads they’ve already paid for. Who else is supporting the toll lanes? Wealthy corporate interests like [Big Lucy Dunn’s] Orange County Business Council (OCBC). They’re backing [Michelle Steel] a wealthy candidate from Los Angeles in the election to succeed John Moorlach on the Board of Supervisors. Their goal is to use Measure M funds to build the infrastructure to support toll lanes while fulfilling the Measure M promise of adding a lane to the 405. Then at some point in the future, they will convert what has already been built into toll lanes.

This issue really boils down to trust and truth. Without Measure M, Caltrans cannot build toll lanes on the 405 – they need to improve the infrastructure (widen bridges, etc.) first. But we already have the money to give Orange County everything it wants, for free, without tolls if we just cut the waste. County supervisors have a vote on OCTA and can stop the toll lanes from going forward. Let’s clean up the mess before grabbing more taxpayer money.

Per Wikipedia, artist’s rendering of the Grand Circus Park station for Detroit’s M-1 Rail project

Bankrupt Detroit and often near-bankrupt Santa Ana both are defying logic and wish to build streetcar systems for the nebulous goal of “economic development”. In Detroit’s case, the federal government has kicked in $140 million per this CNS piece. In Santa Ana’s case, $238 million is expected to mostly come from the county-wide 1/2-cent sales tax, Measure M(2) for purely Santa Ana’s “benefit”.

Says Dr. Sam Staley, a research fellow at Reason Foundation of the Detroit project:

“The city is betting on the streetcar generating a new kind of economic development that will catalyze around this new infrastructure investment. They bought into the rhetoric surrounding these kinds of investments, but most of them have not been backed up by good solid numbers,” Dr. Samuel Staley, managing director of the DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University and research fellow at the Reason Foundation, told CNSNews.com. “Most of these projects are based on future estimates that are rarely validated by studies done post-investment,” Staley said, adding that he is highly skeptical that Detroit’s new streetcar will “create the development it’s promising.” Although he personally likes to ride streetcars, Staley says,“from an economic perspective, they don’t make sense.”Continue reading→

Let’s have a look at OCTA’s “partner’s” record. A simple Google search for ‘caltrans abuses’ found plenty of evidence of why these folks (and their friends at SCAG) ought to be run out of town: Continue reading→

This is OCTA Board Chairman Gregory Winterbottom, in his natural state. You may remember him a few weeks ago, when Diana Lee Carey finished a speech with the exasperated cry, “And if I hear the term ‘locally preferred alternative’ one more time, I’m gonna have to be carried out of here by security!” and Greg quickly cracked, “That might not be such a bad idea.” After which a few people laughed, uncomfortably.

Fancying himself to be possessed of a mordant sense of humor, and also fancying himself to be smarter and wittier than any of his colleagues on the dais, this crustacean has been on the Board for twenty years – clinging like a barnacle to the hull since 1993. He treats his fellow directors with bonhomie or contempt depending on whether they agree with him, and he treats the lowly public with just plain contempt. Continue reading→

Per the Associated Press late this afternoon, via KFI’s website (emphasis ours):

Dealing a major blow to California’s high-speed rail project, a Sacramento County judge has ruled that the agency overseeing the bullet train failed to comply with the financial and environmental requirements voters were promised on the ballot.

Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny, in a ruling late Friday, said the California High-Speed Rail Authority “abused its discretion by approving a funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of the law.” Continue reading→